Liquid Cooling Benefits Implementation Potential

Our group Dorina Veselinova Paul Lammers Bogdan Kovachev Haidy El- Shershaby Ivan Krumov Bashir Bare Bidar 2

The goal of the project Vision – Make the ICT sector more sustainable and efficient Mission – Making companies aware of alternative cooling options – Liquid cooling implemented Implementation – Using natural resources in the Netherlands to decrease energy usage, maximize equipment efficiency and increase its density in datacenters 3

The context Amount of IT equipment predicted to triple Energy consumption also predicted to triple As a result energy cost predicted to increase by a factor of 9 4

Power usage division Power usage is divided between: Server load and computing operations Power conversions and distribution Cooling equipment 5

Why is cooling needed? Datacenters want an uptime of 100% It is recommended that data center ambient air is kept between 10 and 32° C (defined in SLAs) Safe operating temperatures go up to 60° C 6

Liquid vs. Air Air cooling uses roughly the same energy as equipment itself Liquid cooling may reduce energy used by cooling systems by 90% Liquids have great heat capacity and thermal conductivity Water absorbs 3500 times more heat than air does, and it does it 25 times faster Heat capacity of this much air = Heat capacity of this much liquid 7

Power Usage Efficiency (PUE) = Heat capacity of this much liquid PUE has been accepted by vendor consortiums like the Green Grid, the U.S. EPA, ASHRAE and Microsoft Even if you pick the wrong metric - as long as you improve it - you can drive tremendous changes! - Pitt Turner, president of Computer Site Engineering Inc. 8

Traditional cooling with air The most common cooling method is air cooling Air is blown into the cooling block Optional cooling for the chipset Airflow must not be obstructed 9

How does liquid cooling work? Components Cooling block (copper) Water pump Radiators (with fans) Reservoir Hoses Timmy 10

Direct water cooling A holistic approach for cooling Server has cooling blocks The rack itself provides direct connection to cool water No fans needed Liquid cooled 3D processors 11

Submerged servers Using dielectric liquid Total submergence of the server for better coverage Can accommodate theoretically up to 100KW per rack Low running cost Low purchase cost Higher temperature capacity Up to 95% improved efficiency By Green Revolution Cooling 12

Tapping into natural resources Using cold water from the sea Constant temperature Used for water cooling Used for air cooling Bigger initial investment Much cheaper to run Water pumps consume less energy than CRAC units Google implemented it Average surface temperature of 11°C 13

A long-term investment with many benefits Excellent efficiency Low cooling power overhead and CO 2 emissions No vibrations Efficient heat transportation and storage Improves data center scalability and profitability per square meter The potential of liquid cooling 14

Power density levels are on the rise again, the need for very efficient cooling emerges Economic conditions may change in the future, to research liquid cooling is prudent The natural resources in the Netherlands provide many opportunities for easy implementation of liquid cooling and for energy reuse The potential of liquid cooling 15

What do professionals think? 16

A costly solution Difficult retrofitting People claim the need for liquid cooling is still relatively small Clients and providers have to realise to greenify is costly but not necessarily bad for business and definitely good for our children What do professionals think? 17

What modern data centers need What liquid cooling solutions can provide Using ocean water for cooling The public opinion on liquid cooling Why it is unwise to exclude this method as an option for optimising sustainability To summarise The end 18

Feel free to ask questions. 19

Water cooling white paper by Coolcentric: oryreport&task=viewabstract&title=8884&pathway=no 42U Data Center liquid cooling article: Web Host Industry Review article by Roko Nastic: central/060710_Liquid_Cooling_and_Datacenters_A_Perfect_Match Iceotope liquid cooling implementation article by Rich Miller: new-take-on-liquid-cooling/ References 20

Rack door liquid cooling (Over IP Group): Article about Googles data center in Finland: finland/ Article about GRC submerged servers by Rich Miller: servers-green-revolution-cooling/ Industry Perspectives article: advantages-of-liquid-cooling/ References 21